Carole Leigh Hutton, Publisher and Editor, Detroit Free Press

I liked the piece.

This stuff is actually at the very top of my list these days, because it's quite clear to me that readers expect to not only see themselves in our content, they expect to help us determine what it should be. I'm not talking about turning over my responsibility to readers, I'm talking about valuing their input on what they care about, think, want, etc., and valuing their voices when they address it from their own perspectives.

We're experimenting with some blogs right now on things like letting people add their own reviews of movies our critic has reviewed and add their own travel stories and requests for travel info. The prototypes for both call for online blogging but also for use of some of that content in print. We've got a few other ideas like that in the works. People love to tell their stories, and they love to disagree with the "experts," so I think we'll have some success with these.

Obviously, the constraints on what we can put into print are real; newshole is so precious. But we make choices all the time on how to spend it, and increasingly we're spending it on things readers have to say.

In recent months we've been specifically asking for readers to respond to a specific story or coverage of a specific event, with a deliberate come-on in print and online. Then we free up newshole to publish a representative sample of those responses and put the entire load online.

It's interesting how engaged people will get in a topic when you ask for their input. We hear from many more people than would normally be moved to sit down and send a letter to the editor.

For too long, we've worried about how to control the quality of blogs, and we've talked ourselves out of doing it because we think in terms of worst case scenarios. Yes, we sometimes have to go in and remove profanity, and we may miss some that sits up there for many hours. It happens. And yes, we may some day have to say no to a group like the KKK, to use Julie's example, but so what? We make editorial judgments every day. As long as we pay the bills, we can feel comfortable deciding who gets to blog on our dime. Recently, we deleted a posting that we knew used a fake name –- of a prominent person –- in a tasteless posting.

But I'm increasingly comfortable with not being in control of every word published on our site. It probably took me too long to get there, but I'm there. Of course I'm watching for the evolution of case law on this like everyone else is, but I no longer feel obligated to sit and wait for some legal assurance that it's safe. In truth, there are no safety nets.

Anything that engages more readers in a conversation with the newspaper is a good thing. We're about to start a blog commenting on us and what we do with the newspaper. We're not going to defend or try to explain, but we may answer questions if we think we can do that without being defensive.

I hope the newsroom doesn't hate it too much, because I know journalists will occasionally be attacked and will want us to jump in and support them. But part of the new world of publishing is that everyone gets to have his or her say. It's smarter to be the ones hosting that conversation than to sit back and argue about it.